Okay.

Gifts from my father.

The striped baja was a hand-me-down from his adolescent era.

A drug rug, he called it, and we laughed as the messages ran clearer.

See, he started on his downward spiral at an age as ripe as mine, losing bits of himself as he slipped and aged through time.

Sometimes I'd see him in the mirror amidst my own shell-shocking life, resenting him for guidance he couldn't offer if he tried.

The thickness of the fabric fell out in my saffron hand the moment I realized he was a boy before a man.

And then kind of at the end, it was very like, fuck it.

We would love to hear your first piece that you've brought for us today.

Yeah, so I'm actually going to just, I think in a good way, right? Get this one out of the way.

I feel like it's one of my really good pieces.

It's actually one that you had mentioned that was the first piece that you had heard of mine.

So Gifts From My Father.

This is the first piece that I ever performed at an open mic.

And it was actually on my birthday years and years ago.

I know what you're talking about.